Bye-Bye My Sweet Butterfly
by JordiiPordiiPuddinPie
Summary: "I want to be beautiful like him." Rei was back to looking at the butterfly he'd grown so accostumed to seeing day in and day out. "Beautiful and free..." He whispered. Nagisa sniffled and gave a smile, scooting closer to the hospitalized male. "You're halfway there, Rei. Let go... be free..."


Hi, guys. Um, I'm sorry for this, but I was hit with inspiration on the way to my grandma's the other day and... Yeah. Please read the note at the bottom for the full story.

**Summary: **"I want to be beautiful like him." Rei was back to looking at the butterfly he'd grown so accostumed to seeing day in and day out. "Beautiful and free..." He whispered. Nagisa sniffled and gave a smile, scooting closer to the hospitalized male. "You're halfway there, Rei. Let go... be free..."

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Free! Iwatobi Swim Club._**

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"Rei... Rei, _please..._"

Ryugazaki Rei gave a soft, faint moan as he struggled to find the strength to open his eyelids. Someone was calling for him at the end of a dark, lonely tunnel.

"N...agisa?" The blue-haired male murmured. He received a hiccup in response, along with a pair of small, warm hands grabbing onto one of his.

"Rei, can you hear me?" Yes, he'd know that voice anywhere... The boy struggled again to open his eyes, this time succeeding in opening said purple hues up halfway. He could see a blurry blonde figure leaning over him.

"Of course I can you hear you..." Rei mumbled, head tilting to the side a bit, weak, as the male let his eyes drop closed again as he squeezed them tightly shut, trying to adjust them to the sunlight. There was a choked sob and a laugh.

"I didn't think you were going to wake up," Twenty-one year old Hazuki Nagisa whispered, tears falling down his face as he brought his fiancé's hand to his lips, placing a tender kiss on the palm. "They told me you went into a coma and I_ just..._"

"Are my parents here?" Rei asked, wanting to get Nagisa's attention onto something else— another topic. "No," The blonde answered, shaking his head as he kissed Rei's hand again. "But they're on their way." Rei nodded.

"Is my butterfly here?" The blue-haired male asked, opening his eyes and turning his head towards the open window, where some potted flowers sat on the sill. A little, dark blue butterfly was perched on one of the top blossoms.

"Of course," Nagisa said with a quiet, weak laugh. The blonde wiped at his watery eyes and reached over onto the small tray beside Rei's hospital bed. He pulled his lover's standard red-framed glasses from the tray, slipping them onto the taller, thinner male's face and pushing them up his nose. Rei smiled, dazed amethyst hues watching as the butterfly fluttered it's wings.

"He's so beautiful..." The ill male whispered and Nagisa smiled bittersweetly. Rei had told him how beautiful the butterfly was countless times— every day since he'd been admitted into the hospital. The week count was almost three; the number of days at nineteen.

"Just like you," Nagisa said just as quietly, reaching out and cupping Rei's sickly yellow cheek in his hand. The blue-haired male scoffed, tears welling up in his eyes. "I am not, look at me."

And Nagisa did look at his love, as painful as the sight was to see. He took in his yellow, pasty skin and bald scalp, his thin arms and the tired bags under his eyes. He felt more tears come into his own pink hues. "You are."

"I want to be beautiful like him." Rei looked back at the butterfly he'd grown so accostumed to seeing day in and day out. "Beautiful and _free..._" He whispered. Nagisa sniffled and gave a smile, scooting closer to the hospitalized male.

"You're halfway there, Rei," The blonde murmured, cupping the other male's face into his hands and planting a tender kiss on his forehead. "Let go... be free... _whenever you want to_." Nagisa gave his permission and Rei understood what his lover meant. Whenever he decided to let go — to _die_ — Nagisa would be by his side, sad to see him go, but happy to see him no longer suffering. Happy to see him finally become free.

Rei's eyes slipped shut and he slipped back into the darkness of a coma.

Two hours later when the heart monitor beside Rei's hospital bed evened out, the red, fluctuating digital line stabilizing, his mother burst into tears at his bedside. His father stood beside her, rubbing her back and keeping a brave face; they'd seen this coming and he'd been forever bracing himself for this day. Nagisa stood at the end of the bed, tears falling down his face as his eyes wandered over to the window.

The blue butterfly that had stayed forever persistent in keeping Rei company every day fluttered it's wings once, twice, then took off. Nagisa moved slowly over to the window, watching the beautiful creature ascend into the sky. Hands resting on the sill, the blonde smiled, letting his tears fall freely as he quietly murmured,

"Spread those wings, Rei. Be free."

And the butterfly rose ever higher and higher, until Nagisa was sure it had reached the heaven's, carrying Rei's departed soul along with it.

**THE END.**

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I think we can all agree that sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest impact and give birth to the biggest spark of inspiration. If any of you that read this have read _"Sugar We're Going Down" _you might remember me saying that, you know, the inspiration for that was a plane that I thought was just _a little_ too close to my house. Totally just a small, everyday thing. Well, the inspiration behind this was that small, too.

One of my grandfather's died of cancer. He passed away June 23rd of last year and the whole thing just happened _so quickly. _He was diagnosed, hospitalized, for a second told he might not actually have cancer, then moved into Hospice, where he died bitter and angry at the world for his suffering. I was going up to my grandma's house the other day because since he passed we've been staying with her every other day, so I guess it makes sense I'd relate this to him.

When I was driving up there, I came to a stop sign and I, naturally, stopped. I looked to see if anyone was coming— and yeah, there was a truck. While I was watching it getting ready to pass, just sitting there staring out the window of my little red Volkswagon, my eyes dropped a little. And guess what was there waiting for me?

A dead butterfly— wings spread against the pavement and totally deprived of the rest of it's life. As soon as I saw it, I just immediately thought of my grandfather's — both, really, because they each had quick deaths — and how sudden their passings had been. And I just thought, _"Hey, it doesn't matter if you're a butterfly or a human. Your life is still gonna just be so fragile." _And that concept coupled with the dead butterfly just lying there in the road inspired me and, naturally since it was a butterfly and not, say, a dead penguin in the road, my mind jumped to Rei. And... that's just where this came from.

The scenario is based almost entirely off of an event that happened a full week before my grandfather's passing— he'd gone into a coma that they didn't think he'd wake up from, the family was called in, he woke up... Then died later on. I don't really know a lot of people with cancer, so sorry if the descriptions that were supposed to lead you to understand what was wrong were off: all I remember is that he had jaundice and was significantly thinner, even though he was already a very thin man. I will say he still had his hair unlike Rei, but only because he refused chemo or any other sort of treatment. He just wanted to leave and die at home.

So, I guess... This is for my grandfather — both of them, let's say — and that dead butterfly in the road, who never saw whatever killed it coming, much the same way that cancer creeps up on people. Thanks for reading the story, guys, and if you stopped to read this, too, thank you so much. Have a good day. —PuddinPie out.


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